Today, many entities create and manage complex data storage centers capable of storing and accessing hundreds of terabytes of data (e.g., text, image, and video data) that are generated and consumed every day by their users. These complex data storage centers may also need to be capable of creating and storing duplicate copies of this data for disaster-recovery, testing, regulatory, or other purposes. To cope with these storage needs, existing data storage centers often have hundreds or thousands of petabytes of storage capacity.
As needs for storage capacity increase, storage-system providers have attempted to create storage systems that have higher levels of storage density. In some cases, high-density storage systems simply have more storage drives packed into their chassis than their lower-density storage-system counterparts. In a conventional storage-system chassis, a storage drive is typically removably secured within the storage-system chassis using a carrier mechanism that is attached to the storage drive. Unfortunately, as storage-system providers attempt to incorporate more and more storage drives into a storage-system chassis, these carrier mechanisms may present unwanted limitations. For example, conventional carrier mechanisms may occupy significant amounts of space within a storage-system chassis that may be needed for cooling functions and/or that could have otherwise been used for additional storage drives. Additionally, conventional carrier mechanisms may add significant amounts of weight to a storage-system chassis and/or add significant amounts of time to storage-drive servicing tasks.